How do you inventory?

[MMiz]

I'm wondering how everyone does inventory here. Our system is as follows:

Stock Room - Where large numbers of items are stored
Cabinets - Where smaller numbers of items are stored - We refill our trucks from the cabinets

I've seen barcode inventory systems, and other impressive ideas, and am wondering how to improve our system. Do you count all your supplies once a month? Do you use software? Any suggestions?

I look forward to seeing what people have to say

 

[ffemt8978]

We don't have a stock room, and our inventory is done by the good, ole' fashioned eyeball. If it looks low, we order more.

 

[Wingnut]

Every crew that comes in in the morning has to do inventory. We have a check off sheet of the minimum requirements. We also have a central supply, we don't keep any extras at the station, so we have to usually go out of our zone/service to stock up. There's a cabinet at the hospitals here that keeps extra backboards/straps, etc. and we grab those from there too.

 

[TTLWHKR]

(in hillbilly voice)
Don't need to do no in-vin-tor-e

In bubbas van, err I mean da an-boo-lance we got a roll of paper towels, some of that d'ere duck tape, some rope and a broom stick. That's what yall need in d'ere!

But seriously, if I'm getting paid to inventory the stock room.. I'm gonna count every band-aid one by one. We carry a box of extras w/ us on the bus. I'm not going to supply for one gauze pad and an IV pack. If we use it, I write in down in a note book - if we have it on board - it's all good. If its something that you can use another item for, maybe I'll swipe one from the ER.

On the volly truck, we just replace what we use at the end of the run if we don't have more on board. I have an inventory sheet of every single item we put on when it was placed in service. We check that once a week; and we check the state required sheet every six months.

Last time we didn't have a short board, I don't know what happened to it; but we had to have the dept. carpenter make more b/c for the price of a new one in a catalog we could make ten of our own.

And we keep track of items by tearing the bar code off, taping it to the shelf in front of it, and taping a copy of the invoice to the door. Once a month a guy comes in w/ a huge truck, scans the bar codes of the items we need, prints and invoice and gets the stuff out of his truck.

In-The-Field-Restocking.. Compliments of the Bound Tree-Parr salesman only known to us as... the Bound Tree-Parr salesman

 

[Jon]

There was a Co. at EMS today that makes Warehouse Management programs.... trying to sell them to EMS - Idea being you put barcodes on each item, or on the shelf by each item and scan them to say x items here... it then says you shuld have y items, get two more. You then go to supply room, scan out 2 of that and put them it the truck.

You can also go to supply and restock for run xyz, theby saying you used 2 cold-packs, a Long Board, CID's, straps, collar, IV start set and a thousand bag for run xyz. Billing then knows for run xyz you used all these supplies, so you bill for them.


Jon

 

[Phridae]

Just about everyone else in the county stocks their rigs from the hospitals. Being a private service that provides 911 coverage to a city, we have our own supplies. And we have lots of it. Our trucks are stocked well. We could do 10 back-to-back calls and be okay on supplies.

Do in Illinois where I do ride alongs, they stock their rigs from the hospital. And compared to what the trucks here in Wisconsin carry, they carry nothing. I don't know if we're over prepared, or Illinois is under prepared.

Once a week we do a detailed rig check on one of our 4 rigs. Maker sure theres not more or less of something and we decon at the same time. At the start of a shift, I believe they check in everything or at least eye-ball it.

In Illinois, they check in their rigs every morning and they detail check it. We're lazy in Wisconsin, I suppose.

 

[MMiz]

I work for a private service with a decent number of rigs.

We have pleanty of supplies, and there is tons in stock, it's just that most rigs have too much of one item and not enough of enother. We're set up so that we can work a 12 hour shift or 15 calls without restocking, but in private EMS many of those would be just transfers.

I like the idea of having the trucks extensively cleaned and checked over once a week.

We used to have a garage tech who would clean and restock our trucks at the end of our shifts, but of course they both quit after people would turn in messed up trucks. Those were the days

 

[Phridae]

Originally posted by MMiz@Mar 29 2005, 07:09 PM


We used to have a garage tech who would clean and restock our trucks at the end of our shifts, but of course they both quit after people would turn in messed up trucks. Those were the days

We have those too. They're called probies. :lol:

 

[emtchicky156]

We have 3 ambulances and 3 crews that cover a call week 6pm-6am. Each crew does detailed rig maintience on their call week on their assigned ambulance, and we restock after each call either from the hospital or from our own stock.

 

[Ridryder911]

We have a "par" level, unit is checked every shift, we maintain a large supply room with addt'l equipment & supplies.

Be safe,

Ridryder 911

 

[Aileana]

We have a storage area in the base with extra equipment, and it's our responsibility to check and stock the truck pre-shift. The only problem is if you don't get in early enough, you have to take the word of the crew that had the truck before you (which normally isn't a problem anyways, but you never know). Before shift, we have a sheet where we record engine hours etc., and the rest of the truck we just go through and make sure we have enough of everything, then test the equipment. When the storage area gets low on something, we call the supervisor, and he reorders it (I think, anyways).

 

[reaper]

It's nice that someone joins the forum, just to pitch a product they sell.

If you want to contribute that is fine, but don't revive old threads, just to sell your product!

 

[ffemt8978]

It's nice that someone joins the forum, just to pitch a product they sell.

If you want to contribute that is fine, but don't revive old threads, just to sell your product!

If it happens again in the future, please use the Report Post function (the red triangle with the exclamation point in it) that is located in the lower left corner of each post.

This sends an alert message to all of the Community Leaders, and we will deal with the issue as soon as we can.

 

[Chimpie]

It's nice that someone joins the forum, just to pitch a product they sell.

If you want to contribute that is fine, but don't revive old threads, just to sell your product!

If it happens again in the future, please use the Report Post function (the red triangle with the exclamation point in it) that is located in the lower left corner of each post.

This sends an alert message to all of the Community Leaders, and we will deal with the issue as soon as we can.

PS... The post that reaper is referring to has been removed. B)

 

[FFPARAMEDIC08]

We actually use a system of tags to keep things in check. All of the cabinents are tagged. When a tag is broken, we know something needs restocked.

It's unfortunate, but roughly 60% of our employees do NOT check their rigs before a shift.

 

[Jon]

We actually use a system of tags to keep things in check. All of the cabinents are tagged. When a tag is broken, we know something needs restocked.

It's unfortunate, but roughly 60% of our employees do NOT check their rigs before a shift.

Only 60%? You've got 40 percent that ACUTALLY CHECK THE RIGS. You should be proud!

At the vollie squad, we have a 3-page checklist for the evening shift with par numbers on it for the rig and the jump bags... we count everything (Glucose, O2 masks, C-Collars, etc) and then resupply what we need from the closet. The paid daytime crews check the rigs with a slightly more detalied checklist that also has them check the oil, etc.

In theroy, the trucks get restocked after every call and checked at least 2x a day. When crews are busy, we have lots of extra stuff on the rig, and even if we miss some stuff and we don't get to do a checklist, the next shift will do one and restock... and then :censored: about us not restocking the rig

 

[katgrl2003]

We have a checksheet that shows what the company and state requires to be on each truck. Crews are supposed to turn in supply requests at the end of their shifts for what they have used, and the supplies will be in a box with the truck number on it at the beginning of the next shift. At least thats how its supposed to work. More than likely, a truck gets resupplied once a week. I've personally gone over a month without resupply. The main problem is if you're short on something at the beginning of the shift, you have to find a supervisor to unlock the supply room to get it for you. On night shift, that can be a problem since there's not always a supervisor on, and dispatch doesn't have the keys.

-Kat

 

[emtwacker710]

lets see here, at my squad we have one room that is BLS supplies only and inside that room is another room that is ALS supplies only, they are both locked and if your key is programmed right then you can get into the rooms that you need to, the only things we barcode at our squad are the non-disposable items, such as backboards, KED's, Lifepacks, etc. and thats just so we can get them back in the event of an MCI or similiar incident

 

[KEVD18]

the job i just left did it like this: when we ran out of something, we ordered more and hope to hell the stock on the truck held until the order arrived. it usually didnt.

working the sunday 24, i had more down time than i knew what to do with. i tried to cruise through the supply room and jot down what they needed to order because we were low. not out yet, but running low. they never did. then we'd run out and id remind them of when i told them we were almost out of that item last week.

 

[EMT815]

I ride for a volli dept. so we don't have that many calls
so we usually restock what we use after every call from our stock room back at base. When we do rig checks at the beginning of every shift we also check and restock anything that seems low.